District cuts 3 school days

Brookfield school officials cut three school days from next year's calendar and trimmed 11 positions but no individuals in their effort to accommodate a $29.3 budget.

The spending plan allocated by the town is 3.8 percent more than 2003-04 and $1.1 million less than the board requested.
The cut in school days reduces the school year from 183 to 180, the minimum required by the state
Department of Education
.
Finance director
Craig McClain
said the reduction in days saves the district about $25,000 in bus costs and another $2,000 in teacher aid salaries. It has no impact on contracts.
The administration plans to use the three days to provide curriculum training to teachers, who still will attend school for 187 days. The administration had to cut training days that were scheduled for the summer because of the budget.
"We can't slow down our curriculum development,'' said board member

, a former teacher. "We are pinched unbelievably for money. We're trying everything we can to get things done."
Belinda Samuel
, head of the high school parent group, said she'd accept the cut in school days since it meant money to keep teachers in the classroom.
"I think it's a perfectly fine idea, since the goal of the
Brookfield board
of education is to keep class size small,'' Samuel said. "It balances out. If you can keep class size down, you can provide more individual attention, then you won't need the extra days."
Kim Blomker
, president of
Whisconier Middle School PTO
, had no worries either.
"I think educating the teachers and curriculum development are very important,'' said Blomker, who has a child in the middle school and one in high school. "They have a great group of teachers. If they have goals to meet, they'll meet them."
The board met until 11 p.m. Tuesday to come up with the cuts to satisfy their budget for 2004-05. It nixed a proposal to require students to pay to play sports to save money and didn't even bring to a vote the idea of cutting the alternative high school program.
The board reduced the textbook and supplies account to 90 percent of its current allocation.
Staff cuts were accounted for with resignations, retirements and reassignments.
The board agreed to add a second high school assistant principal but it's more a restructuring, board chairman

Matt Grimes
said. The former dean of students/athletic director position was dissolved. The athletic director also will teach, leaving room for an assistant principal position.
In addition, one of five curriculum specialists in the district will return to the classroom, which reduces a position without putting someone out of a job.
The board also liquidated the $50,000 contingency account to pay for a teacher.
"It was really hard to take things out. We worked so hard to craft a budget and then we had to retreat on our work,'' Grimes said.
McClain said 81 percent of the budget is salaries and benefits, which left little money to pay for discretionary items.
"Not only did we lose some instructional staff and support, we will lose custodial help and supplies,'' he said.
McClain and Miles praised Superintendent
John Goetz
's leadership and global view.
"He leads with imagination and compassion. He recognized that this was very important, that we had a job to do to reconstruct the budget," McClain said.
The board cut $75,000 for asbestos monitoring and McClain found $9,000 in savings in the waste refusal account.
Goetz's proposal to move
Barbara Canavan
from director of instruction to acting assistant superintendent was accepted as of Sept. 1, when assistant superintendent
Gary Alger
leaves.
Among the staff reductions was the position of one teacher that had a retirement to offset it at
Huckleberry Hill School
. The board also reduced 2.6 teaching positions at the high school, which will be accommodated through retirements and resignations.